Rice University
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Big Savings for U.S. Students in Open-Source Book Program
Students worried about the rising cost of college textbooks are about to get a break. Connexions, an initiative at Rice University in Houston devoted to producing textbooks using open-source materials, will produce free textbooks for five of the most-attended subjects in American colleges.
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Modified Open Source Laser Cutter Prints 3-D Objects from Powder
Rice University bioengineering researchers have modified a commercial-grade CO2 laser cutter to create OpenSLS, an open-source, selective laser sintering platform that can print intricate 3-D objects from powdered plastics and biomaterials. The system costs at least 40 times less than its commercial counterparts and allows researchers to work with their own specialized powdered materials. The design specs and performance of Rice’s OpenSLS platform, an open-source device similar to commercially available selective laser sintering (SLS) platforms, are described in an open-access paper published in PLOS ONE.
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Open Source 3-D Bioprinting Brings Houston Team One Step Closer to Growing Capillaries
In their work toward 3-D printing transplantable tissues and organs, bioengineers and scientists from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have demonstrated a key step on the path to generate implantable tissues with functioning capillaries. In a paper published online in the journal Biomaterials Science, a team from the laboratories of Rice bioengineer Jordan Miller and Baylor College of Medicine biophysicist Mary Dickinson showed how to use a combination of human endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells to initiate a process called tubulogenesis that is crucial to the formation of blood-transporting capillaries...
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Open Textbooks Gain in Push for College Affordability
The standard textbook for Fundamentals of General Chemistry I at the University of Connecticut has a list price of $303. For students who use the version professor Edward Neth is preparing for the fall semester, the cost will be zero. An early adopter of open source textbooks, Neth said he turned to the new technology out of frustration with spiraling prices of commercial textbooks. “It’s seeing the costs go up every semester and almost feeling powerless,” Neth said...
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OpenStax Provides Cheaper Textbooks and Better Access for Higher Ed Students
OpenStax was founded by Rice University engineering professor Richard Baraniuk in 1999 under the name Connexions. It started like most open source projects: To scratch an itch and address a problem. In this case, Rice University wanted to do something on the web related to education. A grad student suggested that they take the model used to develop Linux and apply it to create textbooks, and Connexions was born. They decided on a license that allowed for reuse with attribution—in essence, this was the first use of the Creative Commons license even before the license existed.
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Photonics-led Consortium Leverages $3B in Private Cancer Research for Early Detection Technologies
The National Photonics Initiative (NPI)...today unveiled a white paper and cancer technology road map that identifies the most promising existing and new technologies for increased and concerted private and public investment to achieve the goals of the National Cancer Moonshot – accelerate the early detection of cancer and save lives.
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Rice U. Lab Creates Open-Source Optogenetics Hardware, Software
Nobody likes a cheater, but Rice University bioengineering graduate student Karl Gerhardt wants people to copy his answers. That’s the whole point. Gerhardt and Rice colleagues have created the first low-cost, easy-to-use optogenetics hardware platform that biologists who have little or no training in engineering or software design can use to incorporate optogenetics testing in their labs. Rice’s Light Plate Apparatus (LPA) is described in a paper available for free online this week in the open-access journal Scientific Reports...
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UNG Recognized For Efforts To Reduce Textbook Costs
With multiple successful digital textbook projects and as many as 10 more on the horizon, the University of North Georgia (UNG) has been recognized as one of the state's leaders in providing open educational resources for students...
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US Backs Push For open Access Textbooks In Arabic
The United States has backed a project that aims to translate American textbooks into Arabic and make them available without copyrights restrictions to educators and students in the Middle East. Read More »
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Waste from Pharmaceutical Plants in India and China Promotes Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs
Superbugs, disease-causing microbes that have mutated to become resistant to antibiotics, are a threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people today and many millions tomorrow. These organisms turn curable illnesses such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and pneumococcal pneumonia into deadly ones. This looming public health disaster has many causes. Overuse of antibiotics by humans and the routine use of antibiotics to help farm animals grow faster are key causes in the United States. One worrisome cause that has received virtually no attention until now is wastewater from drug manufacturing facilities in India and China, where a large portion of the world’s antibiotic supply is produced...
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